• Welcome to Final Fantasy Hacktics. Please login or sign up.
 
March 28, 2024, 07:56:54 am

News:

Use of ePSXe before 2.0 is highly discouraged. Mednafen, RetroArch, and Duckstation are recommended for playing/testing, pSX is recommended for debugging.


Time Mage SCC Bumps

Started by Ram, October 01, 2014, 02:16:49 am

Ram

I have continued playing a Time Mage SCC (Straight Character Challenge) from a long time ago where I barely started but now I'm almost done Chapter 1. I encountered some tough fights where I barely won Dorter, had to use GS codes to balance my party and guest(s) for Sand Rat Cellar (I just adjusted the faith values for the 4 Time Mages and gave enough JP for Delita and Algus to learn Accumulate and Phoenix Down. Only Delita got accumulate, the faith values were set to 72 for the 4 mages.), and then easily won the Thieves Fort fight. This one was incredibly fun BTW, reflect I had on one of the TM's bounced a cure 2 on Delita unexpectedly to heal him back to full HP :) . The 2nd Miluda battle was not easy but I managed to box her in and whack whack whack. I was close to being screwed though, many times dumb luck came through. Now I'm stuck on the 1st Wiegraf fight because Delita keeps charging in and using stupid throw stone instead of accumulate  :mad: . Usually he is near death before I get even 1 playable turn. Even with everything going right in this fight, I still can't beat Wiegraf since I only have Delita for big damage attacks, one demi from one of the TMs, and then staff whacking. I "don't move" everything and then try and slow and/or stop Wiegraf but it wears off too quickly. The position of graffy and terrain of the field make it hard to access him. There is no way to surround graffy. I tried 3 times and there is really no hope of winning with my current setup. I have up to par equips with MP switch on 2 and Short Charge on 1. Here are options that I have come up with:

All TMs have demi, Give Delita only accumulate through GS codes, Give Delita auto-potion through GS codes, and/or Change Delita's class.

My question is, is it possible to win without auto-potion on Delita and having him not have Summon? Maybe archer would work? I have gone through YouTube videos (no TM SCC videos on there (except 1 or 2) surprisingly but just SSCC) and some tips with 1 main guide but it doesn't address this battle. If I go the demi on all TMs route, that would barely allow for any haste and don't move which would ruin the team  ;) . If I isolate Delita's accumulate skill, what modifier for # 0x2b - Base Action Abilities 1-8 and # 0x2c - Base Action Abilities 9-16 do I use? There is no lookup for that and if I was playing this with an emulator I could check myself to play around with Delita's Squire combos of what is learned and what isn't. 80058F9F ????
<&Angel> if WotL is your preference, 99 times out of 100, you can't be trusted to know how to use a toilet properly
<~Xifanie> Weazel has a degree in bathroomonics
<&Angel> everyone who wants to mod WotL exclusively is pants on head retarded

Ram

Here is what transpired:

I got past the 1st Weigraf fight in my SCC Time Mage playthrough, now the Algus fight. Auto-potion was always the big problem with him so I assume I need to stop him and then demi until he's toast? Problem is, Ramza is in the best position for that and before he can get a stop off, MP switch from the black mage's spell or just plain death come before stop goes off on Algus. I might try to have Ramza placed further away from a black mage's reach so no spells are used. Interestingly enough, Algus' 35 brave or close to that doesn't do anything to stop auto-potion from going off more like 75% of the time. He got it 5-6 times in a row. Not only that, but for the 2 battles and then another Time Mage SSCC video I watched it was the same exact thing, auto-potion went off 75% or more of the time' The most fun battle was Miluda 1st fight, by far. It was entertainment pure and simple. When I gave everyone in Weigraf 1 fight demi, I had everything perfect until 2 demi's missed on him, then the tide turned and everyone died.

I made Delita a monk for Algus fight, he does 40 dmg hit with that. No auto-potion either which was great. Then its lights out for him. On my 2nd attempt, I got very lucky with the Algus battle, damn it was a nail-biter. I screwed up trying to put stop on him, then demi'd anyways and got lucky with hits and no auto-potion...black mages also didn't target Ramza at the start which is huge, but they instead went after other TMs on the opposite side...almost ended it. One TM was out of range to do another Demi or was out of MP, and 2 BMs targeted Ramza when Algus was in critical with only 6 HP!! I then got Ramza in this position where he would share the spells onto 3 enemies including the BMs!! It was one of the most spectacular redirects ever, total blowup with all 3 blasted to death...this allowed just remaining TMs to go after Algus with 2 knights and I caught up with Algus, tried to hit for 71% to end this chapter...and it missed!! Holy crap WTF?!? One of my dead TMs was at 0 counter! Thank God I had another chance with a back-attack soon and critical hit Algus back to Hades! Very close!

The wild "luck" went on as the very first attack by Gaf in Chapter 2's first fight, was also critical hit so 2 in a row separated by chapters. I also had 3 MP Switches go off in a row in that battle when the enemy started targeting non-guests. Gaf started using haste because he had TM secondary near the end...he knows what SCC this is! Lol.

The battle where you are with Delita and the princess at the waterfall...I just milked it for all its worth and then some lol. I planned on hasting my core unit and then slowing everything else as much as possible including Agrias, Delita. I hasted a bare priest Gaf so I could get some chuckles in. Cooly enough, Gaf did put shell and cure to pretty decent use which was excellent to prolong the battle for grinding JP and levels a bit. Then on top of that, some knights had potion, grabbed crystals when low on HP, Delita's death proc didn't go off much, and one of the knights even used Water Ball elemental on one of my TMs which frogged him! Perfect because grinding JP is easy when 1 dmg is only done. I attacked my own units on the other side of the map to grind and the frog was great. Agrias and Olivia went to the very top of the map after a long time, Delita got down to 90 HP. I spent 1 hour at least in battle, 3-4X longer than the longest previous for this one.

Now I'm at the save Mustadio fight, looks quite tough and I died for my first time try here. I believe I'll need teleport on 2 units, reflect+short charge on 2 or more, and luck with demis. Only Agrias, demis, and staff whacking are means to dmg here. Something crazy though, I thought I had outsmarted the AI or the AI was being stupid but really it was clever...a reflected TM was targeted by one BM with a big spell and I thought WTH is he doing here? Turns out just before it went off...reflect wore off! Damn! Also, Mustadio died within 2 turns so that wasn't in my favor...needs to stay with it with Agrias and him hasted always. Slow down the enemies as expected and avoid the Wizards until they're incapacitated. Very likely I'll need to don't move some of those knights that try and come over the wall and get at least 1 crystal from a dead enemy unit.

I beat the Mustadio fight and with the right abilities, max equipment for everyone, some levels but still around Level 12, and Mustadio himself staying alive...it was easier by 9 fold!! :) . Teleport and that reflect spell on 4 units made an enormous difference and none of the black mages could even get off any attacks, much less a magic spell on me.  Don't moving the knights completely destroys their game, BMs were dead within 3 turns, Archers were not doing heavy damage. Those rainbow staffs really punch hard, 50-75 dmg now which is a huge help because when there is no MP, it changes everything. I didn't need Demi at all this battle, just staff whacking and Agrias.

I also beat the hill fight on my first try, wasn't too bad but a lot more TMs got critical status and some had to hang back a long time. Mustadio was useful for sure this time, he crit shot a summoner mid-charge and killed her so that saved the day. During the course of the battle, 2 archers got stop and don't-act put on them which helped.

I beat Goug Machine City and took 3 tries. No meteor was used. I "don't moved" the 2 thieves for almost the whole battle which is effective. Summoners only got 1 summon off...for some reason 1 always withholds doing a summon. Get the archer in the right spot and she can't attack at all or move away...pretty cool.  Goug wasn't bad, I thought of it as a hard battle back when I first played this game. Summoners were dead meat once slow was applied. I think one didn't even get a single attack off. Archers did surprising low dmg too. What really helps is those Rainbow staffs, they whack great dmg and keeping your level down to 13-14 means randoms and some monster story battles are easy. I got 80 dmg off on one of the archers while she was charging.

I finally beat that awful save Agrias fight, took 8 tries to not have one of my units crystallize because of BS, one action events. It was indeed hard, I thought it would have been much easier than it was, I could win but not without some unit dying and crystallizing. It was just a ton of horseshit moves that screwed me over every time when I should have taken it easily, like just one little action destroyed it 4 times. For example, Agrias got stop off on the first knight and wizard and that battle I lost a TM because of that wizard reflecting back on a reflected TM right beside the other...happened twice for this playthrough! Another BS move for the Save Agrias fight, a 46% arrow hit her while she was in critical and if it hadn't, I would have won that with all TMs intact too! Agrias getting a helm broken for 26% when everything was going perfect, thankfully I still won with all my mages intact. It was the positioning that won it I believe.

My plan for execution site is to haste and whack and slow but save enough JP for demi 1, and then get units on that tall execution thing where no enemy can attack and use demi there. Then rotate the units in and out of that position. I can flee faster with teleport so the gang-up is harder, maybe going to the arch "roof" and then using demi there or whatever.

When trying the execution site a few times, I was raped even with Agrias in my team (after one of my TMs crystallized but still won the previous fight, I went on with Agrias just to try this battle) when I decided to check it out before finishing the later properly...ugh. I couldn't even take out Gaf with the whole party. I tried demi on Gaf but its hard to get him down to under 70 hp before he wakes up or gets a turn. Even getting them up on that ledge or roof only delays the punishment and crush. What also made me chuckle was how when the enemy time mages cast stop which they did 2 times, its 65% and hits instead of mine always missing, AI cheating assholes!! Not only that, but neutral compat!! WTF?!? I never go above 54% even when best compat! I don't know if anyone has done a Time Mage SCC without meteor or the execution site without it, so I wonder if there is a method for execution site. If it seems impossible I'll cave and use meteor with one of the TMs that has more than 1500 JP. I will try not to use short-charge and meteor in this SCC (just short-charge alone) including the execution site but trying it twice looks to be nearly impossible without it.

So when thinking about it, I might have to get Stop to work on multiple enemies at once and more than once, then kill Gaf, then target one enemy and get him dead and move onto the next, maybe using Demi and the roof at this time. When everyone is out of MP, just acquire a possible crystal to restore health and use more haste and demis. Getting a 3rd stop on more than 3 enemies at a time and maybe using Slow 2 is the answer here. Efficient use of MP will be key here, can't waste it. This is likely the only way to do it without Meteor. This might take 20-40 retries.
<&Angel> if WotL is your preference, 99 times out of 100, you can't be trusted to know how to use a toilet properly
<~Xifanie> Weazel has a degree in bathroomonics
<&Angel> everyone who wants to mod WotL exclusively is pants on head retarded

Ram

I picked up my Time Mage SCC (No Meteor) challenge again after leaving it for quite a long time and I decided to try it from a different angle where the reaction abilities for all 5 of my units are set to Critical Quick instead of a mix of MP Switch and that. I have gone through another 4 or 5 attempts and one yesterday was pretty darn good and I think I had a shot of winning if I didn't miss Stop on Gaf right from the start and had Don't move resolve on the two knights on the ground.

Here is how it went: For the first formation I had Ramza and the 2 units back to the far corner and then the 2nd formation was the 2 TMs in the back row. There was a slight delay with every unit getting hasted but it ended up being perfect timing. I waited where needed. The placement of units in this scenario was Gaf needs to target the 2 lone TM units on your team where the wall is, archer needs to make a rare move to the right of the map (where your 3 units start) to have TMs gang up and destroy early, 2 knights on the ground Don't Moved right away (even before haste is cast), one TM over on the north end comes over and gangs up on the aforementioned archer who is the first enemy to be killed, then get Gaf to leave (get him critical) with two units attacking him, then the TM on the wall, then knight at the top of the wall, etc. From there the battle will be winnable as long as crytals can be gathered from dead enemies. The tipping point is 4 enemies wiped out with all 5 units on your side still living in my estimation. The key is not to let the enemies get too many hits during the first 40% of the battle, I managed to hold off more than a few hits for a surprisingly long time. As mentioned, ganging up is pretty effective and I was surprised when this strat worked because I thought everything would need to be slowed/stopped and then demi'd but this works even better. The 3rd key to this latest good battle was many enemy units wasted time with don't move, and trying to catch up to the other side where my units are at...maximizing the waste of enemy turns is important.

Near the end of this, I had 3 misses on Gaf with Stop, and 3 misses on the knight at the top and some 90% misses with a TM!! That was horrible luck and I still managed to kill 3 foes and stop Gaf by the end (could have killed 4 but bad luck got in). One enemy TM used demi for the first time that I've seen it in memory (mid-battle). Enemy TMs also seem to do nothing a lot of the time (mid-to-end game) for some reason but other fights they are always up to something...their MP is fullish so I'm confused by why this is but I'll take it! :lol: .

This is what will cause an instant reset for this: Gaf must not have anything other than 200-209 HP (any higher and its a reset), if stop misses the first time on Gaf, if Slow resolves on your TMs from enemy TMs, and if one of your units dies before 4-5 enemies are KO'd.

Critical Quick is working better than MP Switch did for a reaction ability on all 5 units of mine...these are the 2 types of battles for this challenge. The placement of the TMs are extremely important, just one square off during testing caused a playthrough to go from the closest scenario to winning to the worst set of happenings I've ever had since doing this challenge!! That's how big!! :shock: The only wild card aside from the obvious ones, is what the 2nd enemy archer does on the far end of the map and if she even stays over there, otherwise more damage will be dealt and less turns wasted. It was a balance of sorts making sure that archer stayed over there instead of moving across. Another thing with the use of CC is to get away in a hurry and wait for a crystal from an enemy.
<&Angel> if WotL is your preference, 99 times out of 100, you can't be trusted to know how to use a toilet properly
<~Xifanie> Weazel has a degree in bathroomonics
<&Angel> everyone who wants to mod WotL exclusively is pants on head retarded